Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

The Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) requires that consumers who apply for a mortgage to purchase a home receive certain information on real estate settlement services and related costs. Before 2015, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development published a booklet titled Shopping for Your Home Loan: Settlement Cost Booklet, which lenders provided to mortgage applicants. Starting in October 2015, coincident with the implementation of new mortgage loan estimate and closing disclosure forms, lenders began providing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s substantially revised publication, the “Your Home Loan Toolkit.” Using the National Survey of Mortgage Origination data, this paper details the extent to which mortgage applicants recalled getting the Toolkit. Because the Toolkit is required only for purchase mortgages, the analysis considers purchase-mortgage borrowers’ recollection of receiving the Booklet or the Toolkit. This paper finds that the percentage of homebuyers who remember receiving the information increased with the introduction of the new Toolkit. The estimated marginal effects are statistically significant and large compared with other factors.